To pay them and the court-ordered restitution, she’d drained her savings, and when she tried to take a second mortgage on the house to survive, the bank found the last trap my father had left.

Clifford’s will had let Frances live in the house, but the deed itself sat in a blind trust controlled entirely by me.

She couldn’t borrow against it.

She couldn’t sell it.

And when she could no longer cover the property taxes, the county foreclosed.

I let it happen.